Janice Polito
Dr. Janice Polito was the head scientist and computer engineer working aboard the starship Von Braun as the Senior Systems Analyst. Her office is on the Operations Deck. She is a close friend of Dr. Marie Delacroix. Early Career She had written a number of famous papers on artificial intelligence, most of them in the clenched teeth, hand wringing style so popular in the Neo-Luddite community. Her book, Emergent AIs and Ethical Constraints was the premier philosophical work on AIs in the post-SHODAN era. In an apparent self-contradiction, she has created XERXES. She estimated the prototype 453/RT4b3 should had been ready by 2107 but most of the development time was dedicated to perfect restraint and containment protocols; only the one third of the development was actual AI routines. Her team planned to reveal the project for authorization and production only when and if they were convinced that XERXES is secure. Polito expressed her concerns to Marie Delacroix about the creation of Sarah, the A.I. that would operate Faster-Than-Light travel. She was among the scientists at the UNN senate subcommittee about the authorization of the FTL project. Polito presented a negative stance in the talks, explaining that Sarah would crack open the galaxy and eliminate mystery from the universe. She held reservations about what she would do, since she would use the forbidden form of computing power that gave SHODAN. While conventional "safe" A.I. could never make the kind of leaps necessary on this schedule, that creates a paradoxical dilemma: to build the kind of technology we really don't understand, we must harness technology that we don't trust. Chairman Cal McGill (who was secretly working in favor to TriOp interests) eliminated Polito's arguments by revealing the existence of XERXES. Frustrated, Polito left the room, and later she would be criticized for hypocrisy; constructing the very kind of technology she condemned. Voyage of the Von Braun Dr. Polito's primary responsibility was monitoring XERXES to prevent a computer artificial intelligence from going rogue, as SHODAN did. She was also responsible for anything related to the cryo suite, chemical storage, and computer technical support. During Infection on Von Braun After arriving at Tau Ceti V, Bayliss, the liaison officer for TriOptimum and the UNN, brought back a computer wafer for Polito to examine. At first she thought it was an alien hardware, but noticed the A.I. was speaking "English". When The Many began to spread throughout the ship, the A.I. integrated into the ship's computer and Polito's room was also ransacked. It is unknown who is responsible for breaking into her office, though it is likely a crew member already under the influence of the Hive Mind. Death Polito began her own investigation and started looking into the files of Citadel Station and found the origin of the wafer. By this time, it was obvious that SHODAN had already integrated herself within the ship's computer and Polito could only watch in horror, in which on July 10th, leading her ultimately to commit suicide in her office rather then see the outcome and the suffering. Soon, SHODAN began using Polito's identity to begin its plan to gain control of the Von Braun. Grassi received an email from Polito/SHODAN ordering him to move SOLDIER G65434-2 into the surgical cryo in order to be fitted with the illegal R-graded military implants. Bayliss also received an email purportedly from Polito ordering him to delete some of the memory restoration files in the cryo suite. Both Grassi and Bayliss were suspicious as to what was going on, but continued to follow her orders. SHODAN would continue to use Polito's identity to help Soldier G65434-2 throughout The Many's infestation in order to gain his trust until his discovery of Polito's body, which prompted SHODAN to finally reveal herself soon afterward. Audio Logs *Strange AI *AI Voice Fragment *Pandora Trivia *In her Audio Logs and Emails, she is depicted with a red Engineering red uniform. However, when she is found in her office, her character model is the Generic Female Ops skin, which is purple. *She is extremely similar to Rebecca Lansing from System Shock, since they both guide the hacker and act as their mentor. The same can be said of Atlas in BioShock who is later to be the villain Frank Fontaine. ---- Category:Characters Category:Female Characters Category:System Shock 2 Characters Category:Short story